None of these visitors gave him a convincing argument against his moral convictions about conscientious objection. Mother’s Day gifts from small mom-run Catholic businesses Read articleįriends, family and even the local bishop visited Jagerstatter in prison, trying to convince him to fight.
"I am convinced it is best that I speak the truth, even if it costs me my life," he wrote. He was summarily carted to the military prison at Linz to learn his fate. He went to the induction center, where he announced that he would not fight. Unfortunately, in 1943 the need for fighters grew, and Jagerstatter was called to active duty. He would not fight for the Nazis.Īt first it seemed that being a farmer would keep him from fighting–Germany's massive army required equally massive amounts of food.
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But Franz couldn't reconcile that worldview with the fact that he had free will, and that he could not call himself a disciple if he bowed that will to a movement he viewed as satanic. By this obedience, the people who made the decisions, and not the peasant, would hold moral responsibility for the actions. The prevailing idea at the time was that a peasant layman should do what his country told him to do. "I believe there could scarcely be a sadder hour for the true Christian faith in our country," he wrote. One cardinal even demanded that all parishes fly the Nazi flag from their churches on Hitler's birthday. He was dismayed to see many Catholics support the Nazis. The same pope who had blessed Jagerstatter's marriage, Pius XI, in 1937 published the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, on the strained relations between the Church and Nazi Germany.īuoyed by these witnesses, Jagerstatter was still the only person in his whole town to disavow Anschluss, or the German annexation of Austria. That same bishop would declare, "It is impossible to be both a good Catholic and a true Nazi." He was later replaced with a bishop who spoke more cautiously. His bishop had dictated an anti-Nazi letter to be read in all the parishes several years earlier. Jagerstatter's own pastor had been jailed for delivering an anti-Nazi sermon. Catholics in Germany were facing severe restrictions, including the prohibition of Mass outside of Sundays, even for the holiest solemnities and feast days. The Catholic Church in Austria had warned against Nazi socialism for years.
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